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Bill Allows Teachers to Contradict Evolution
Helical writes "In an attempt to defy the newly approved state science standards, Florida Senator Rhonda Storms has proposed a bill that would allow teachers to contradict the teaching of evolution. Her bill states that 'Every public school teacher in the state's K-12 school system shall have the affirmative right and freedom to objectively present scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution in connection with teaching any prescribed curriculum regarding chemical or biological origins.' The bill's main focus is on protecting teachers who want to adopt alternative teaching plans from sanction, and to allow teachers the freedom to teach whatever they wish, even if it is in opposition to current standards."
What's the big deal? Stupid teachers still wouldn't be allowed to teach "Intelligent Design" anyway, since -- according to the summary -- the information still has to be scientific (and "ID" fails at that).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
While teachers should be allowed to teach what they please, they should not be allowed to impress their beliefs on others.
Teachers need to stick to a standardized curriculum, and if they disagree with evolution, they should simply SAY so when teaching it - teachers could say "This is NOT what I think happened, but there are a lot of people that DO think this way".
Teach the information, NOT beliefs - I want the state OUT of my bedroom, and separate from religion!
Concepts like Senator Storms should make her a dinosaur, but have seemingly allowed her to evolve and keep a job in politics.
No sig for you! Come back one year!
So, it sounds as though the state legislature is trying to pass a law that says that if a teacher personally disagrees with evolution, then they can refuse to teach it.
Is the next step going to be that if I hold a strong religious and ethical belief about the speed limit, I'm not bound by it?
"...let us wear upon our sleeves the crepe of mourning for a civilization that had the promise of joy..."
Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
Right-wingers bitch about how our public schools do a shitty job, then insist on teaching pseudoscientific garbage like intelligent design. It'd be funny if it wasn't so sad.
They aren't thinking of the students if they teach fairy tales. Any teacher outside of a Sunday school teaching mysticism should have their teaching papers revoked.
Trolling is a art,
so at what point do we stop letting english and business majors decide what science teacher should be able to teach?
It seems worse than that. The language is "every teacher", not "every science teacher". The high school biology teacher may be teaching evolution, but the music teacher is trying to throw some intelligent design at the kids. (Again, ID != science)
Without a concrete definition of whose "science" you are using, any teacher could find some half-baked textbook that proclaims to be scientific and tell the School Administrators they're teaching true "scientific" information.
They should put a little protection in there for those that want to teach the Flat Earth concept, too.
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
Creationism wrapped up in the guise of scientific knowledge and academic freedom. This is an OBVIOUS effort by members of the FL legislature to pander to religious groups. It just happens to be couched in an "academic freedom" argument. Don't buy it. It isn't value neutral and it isn't fair.
Students already face an uphill battle in getting over unscientific hunches formed in childhood. Evolution, in its fullness, is a rejection of those hunches. This bill clouds the issue by allowing teachers to present a curriculum that plays to those hunches in order to serve as religious indoctrination. Think about some of the main "tenets" of ID: the notion that complexity cannot occur from iterated evaluations of simple rules--they claim things like the eye are "too complex" to have been formed via "random" mutation. This SOUNDS reasonable, until you realize that it is just a play on our intuition. It isn't true in the slightest. The same with the claim that animals or humans were elegantly designed. While there is what some scientists would call elegance in plenty of biological forms, their implementation shows signs of prior adaptations. It takes a lot of careful study to learn exactly how and why our endocrine system or our vascular system is imperfectly adapted let alone begin to think about how pregnancy is an imperfect adaptation. This is why ID is primed for the 8-12 crowd. Those critical thinking skill are just solidifying. There isn't a large movement to teach ID in colleges because the material would be rejected at greater rates.
This is religious nonsense packages as science. Nothing more.
Modern primates, including humans, evolved from a common ancestor. That tired line "Why are there still monkeys?!" is just fucking retarded. Of course you're free to present any actual evidence supporting your position...
Trolling is a art,
Why should teachers be obligated to teach to a curriculum to all the other subjects but not science? I say let them teach math that contradicts mathematics, grammar that contradicts english, history revised to their personal taste, imaginary geography, using non standardized mapping systems, let them teach kids the wrong organs. For example if I believe people have 3 hearts, why shouldn't I be allowed to teach that? If some teacher thinks that the solar system rotates around the earth, or that the earth is flat, or that heavier objects fall faster, well whose to say they aren't allowed to teach that? Isn't the real purpose of having a teaching job to have a platform to spread your personal views to other peoples children?
Why stop at the subject matter? If teachers think children learn best by playing outside all day long and having no homework, well aren't the teachers the ones who are supposed to know how beast to teach? That is their life long profession isn't it? Its not like we let the teachers dictate what the current state of scientific knowledge is... oh.. wait.. that is what this bill is about isn't it?
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
...to allow teachers the freedom to teach whatever they wish, even if it is in opposition to current standards.Then they're not standards anymore. That's why we have standards, so you can be guaranteed a certain level of uniformity and quality. If you don't have to follow standards then they become suggestions.
I'd like to see these people eat a big pile of USDA Grade A beef - but with flexible standards that the stores are allowed to define as to what "USDA Grade A" actually means. Would you eat it? Hell no.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
...teachers who elect to teach their students scientific material about homosexuality or birth control.
Or does the bill only protect the "freedom" to teach material on certain selected sides of certain selected controversies?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I can hardly wait untill a teacher starts spreading the truth of the Giant Spaghetti Monster.
I bet that goes over real well.
-- Sig under construction...
Doctor: Before I give you this injection, I have to ask you an important question: do you believe in evolution?
Patient: Of course, not! Why do you ask?
Doctor: You see, I have this flu shot here. If you believe in evolution, you will accept that the flu bug is constantly changing and evolving, thus your immune system will not recognize it and you'll come down with the flu. With this shot, your immune system will be up to date on the latest strain.
Patient: And if I don't believe in evolution?
Doctor: You've already had the flu once, therefore you'll never catch it again.
Patient: But that's not...that's not...true?
Doctor: As a liberal and scientist, I would never want to force another person to accept my own views and beliefs, even if they happen to be manifestly correct.
Or to put it another way:
adventurer #1: I do not believe there is a bear in that cave.
[mauling, violence, blood]
adventurer #2: So you say. But your disbelief seems not to have dissuaded the bear.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
So, um...how does this comply with separation of church and state?
Wow. What would John Scopes think about this? When he was told by law he could not teach something, he replied:
This proposed law is precisely what Scopes WANTED. And now y'all are condemning it.
The pro-evolution forces used to be in favor of academic freedom. No longer.
The religious factions has gotten too much power over the education. End result will be that the children will grow up not knowing what makes the light work, how the picture in the TV gets there and assuming that just because the teacher said man was created from the image of God that's the only truth.
But I assume that it's too much to expect from a country that hasn't gone metric yet.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
The article has a quote:
On the day the state board voted, Stemberger called adding the phrase "scientific theory" a "meaningless and impotent change." I disagree with that statement. That phrase could actually prove useful to those challenging unscientific ideas being taught in science classes. If the law states that they can teach scientific theories, then those challenging what is being taught can simply ask, "what scientific evidence exists to support the idea? Can we use the scientific method to test it?"It's true. Catholics do belive in evolution, and all science since science gives us proof of God's greatness. It's the Baptists that don't believe in evolution and shootoff other Christian religions that is the issue. Those literalists don't really understand or care to understand the real meaning of the Bible. They don't see that there can be more than one side to a story and that the Bible has much evidence of this.
Not to rain on your parade, but while ID in general does fail the test of falsifiability, your assertion that you can objectively determine if a theory is scientific by determining if it is falsifiable isn't in line with the ideas of many modern philosophers of science. It's mainly Karl Popper's idea, who rejected inductive reasoning (which is a hallmark of scientific thinking).
I'm no philosopher, so I might be doing a poor job of explaining this, but it might be worth to take a look at the Wikipedia article on falsification.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
The rest of the world doesn't care that you're stupiding up your children. It just makes it easier for us to crush you scientifically. Trust me when I say that the increasingly low standards for your science education just make us feel like there are more opportunities for us. I'm sure the Chinese, Japanese and Indians feel the same. The less you know, the easier it makes it for the rest of us to make stuff and sell it to you.
Thanks,
The Rest of the World (specifically those of us teaching our children proper scientific theory)
What your post is evidence of is your personal ignorance and your belief that you're own incredulity amounts to a legitimate criticism. Even if evolution is false, it doesn't give license to declare "high intelligence". Tell me, what is so intelligent about the human knee or the human spine or the vertebrate eye? For goodness sakes, our bloody spine is quadriped structure partially realigned for bipedal motion. It's a perfect example of an evolutionary process, and if it was designed by some intelligence, that intelligence was either a retard or malignant monster, judging by the number of people with back problems.
Evolution predicts we will find transitional forms in the fossil record. Fortunately, over the last four or five decades we have found a way to compliment that line of evidence; and that's the molecular record. Go look up the twin-nested hierarchy and then get back to us.
And common sense may actually be the absolute worst way to determine truth. Common sense is nothing more than a euphemism for cultural prejudices, and science centuries ago started ignoring it as a means of determining how the world works.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It doesn't. And it doesn't have to, either. Why? Because complaints would be generated about any teacher trying to teach "ID" on the grounds that it wouldn't be protected by that "affirmative right" (since it's not scientific), and those complaints would work their way up the school administrative hierarchy to the school board (and probably beyond it, to the courts).
In other words, even if you can't challenge the teacher on the basis of whether he has a right to teach a "full range" of scientific information, you can still challenge him on the basis of whether the information he's teaching is actually within that range.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Yep, we are going to hell in a handbasket. The religious factions have acquired far too much political power period. For a country founded upon secular principles it continually amazes me to see how far we have fallen.
The way the discussion is being framed is a big part of the problem - that it's an either/or situation. I've seen quotes from a number of scientists that see no conflict between faith and science; they all boil down to how you choose to define them. The sad fact is that religious zealots tend not to be persuadable.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
Good call. I was about to post a similar thing by proposing that we allow for teaching things which "contradict" standardized math - I.E. 2+2=5. Seems only fair that math gets in on the teaching of factually inaccurate information, since math forms the basis of much of science.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
One of my problems with the Science vs Biblical-Literalism debate is posts like this: anyone who is misguided is immediately suspected of being some crazy fundamentalist loon and the enemy of reason.
You can't start a productive debate by suggesting that your opponent is inherently stupid/ignorant/bigotted.
If you respond in an informed scientific way, anyone open to hearing a rational argument will respond well to you. If, on the other hand, you respond in a way that suggest science isn't for religious people, you actively encourage them to reject scientific thinking.
This polarises the debate -- meaning that it drives moderates to become extremists.
You may think you are promoting science, but you are actually promoting the rejection of science.
With friends like you, does science need enemies.
HAL.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Doesn't really look like they had completely secular principles in mind when deciding to defect and form their own country to me.
Teach evolution, creationism, hedonism, whatever, just don't leave kids the slightest notion that we don't have it all figured out. We need them spending their dispensible income and polluting the planet as soon as possible. The damage of any undue delay would greatly outweigh any feasible benefits of the little brats exercising freewill. It is imperative that doctrine be imposed to catch anyone who doesn't fully accept materialism from TV and video games to be sure all innocent hope is quashed.
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
Okay, doesn't it seem like there's a contradiction in there?
For a country founded upon secular principles it continually amazes me to see how far we have fallen.You'd have to do some serious mental gymnastics to convince yourself that the U.S. was founded on secular principles (or maybe not - they do tend to gloss over our religious heritage in public school these days).
The way the discussion is being framed is a big part of the problem - that it's an either/or situation. I've seen quotes from a number of scientists that see no conflict between faith and science; they all boil down to how you choose to define them. The sad fact is that religious zealots tend not to be persuadable.You should have patience with "religious zealots". See, we evolved this way. We were born with the "God gene" so we can't help what we believe. It's a scientific theory, so I'm sure you don't doubt it.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
Better not to, really. Teachers, particularly science teachers, are usually educated, rational thinkers. They're far more likely to support the teaching of evolution in schools compared to the parent of the average child (keeping in mind here that uneducated parents, and religious whackos generally, typically have more children than educated ones). So if that information was widely available, you'd have far more idiot parents looking for similarly idiotic teachers than the other way around.
Well, to be fair, most Nazis were German, most Terrorists are Muslim, most Sissies are French, and most Americans are FAT!
I'd rather that teachers taught the scientific proccess. It's better to know how to think that to know what to think.
The silver lining of this is that parents get a free litmus test. If a science teacher tries to teach ID based on this bill then the teacher doesn't know enough science to properly be a teacher.
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.In case you're confused:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Considering the deist nature of many of the founders, it's fairly obvious that they were referring to a more naturistic god then that referred to in whatever scripture you might choose. I find this overall to be a rather secular statement. In case you are confused secular means "of or relating to the worldly or temporal" not necessarily "no god." The statements in the Declaration towards the Laws of Nature and Nature's God are in fact very worldly.
You can express doubt about the theory of evolution without saying anything unfactual. You can point to "gaps" (granted, you might want to read up on recent discoveries as some of those gaps close). You can mention how rare beneficial mutations are. You can point out the assumptions made in dating fossils and in the creation of "the fossil record". If you present all the relevant facts and let the students think for themselves, I don't see how this is a problem. The way some people freak out about this, you'd think evolution was a religion.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
Catholic doctrine teaches that the "holy book" is fallible.
If you present all the relevant facts and let the students think for themselves, I don't see how this is a problem.
If this was actually done ("all" the evidence), then no one would have the slightest doubt about evolution, anymore than someone looking at the Earth from space would still question a flat earth. The problem is that most people don't want to look at the all the facts, because reality would conflict with their world view. Therefore, they ignore the facts.
The way some people freak out about this, you'd think evolution was a religion.
People "freak out" because it's the forces of ignorance attacking the forces of truth.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
People "freak" because it's like saying there are alternative theories to gravity. (The Onion has done a rather well-done article on Christian scientists proposing "intelligent falling.")
In fact, I think the comparison is very apt. We can observe a lot of effects from gravity and evolution, but the EXACT causes and manner in which it happens, remain somewhat of a mystery. There is no large scientific conspiracy trying to hide the truth. There is, at most, a handful of scientists trying to make a name for themselves by suggesting alternatives. But that's true of pretty much anything. No, you're not going to find some creditable biology lab or university that says "Oh, it's definitely wrong."
These people are trying to make a debate out of what should not be one. The vast, vasr majority of scientists, the only people really QUALIFIED to look at the data and analyze it are in a great consensus. If you want to say they are wrong, and you don't need science to prove it... Then I really don't want you deciding what goes on a class specifically ABOUT science.
Morals are morals, you shouldn't kill, lie, etc, but that the book is only a way to explain those morals. How many people do you know tend sheep nowadays anyway?
This law eliminates causes for termination, more than anything, because it does not actually grant any rights the teacher (or anyone else) already has.
Uh, no, the Free Speech Doctrine most certainly does not apply. A public school teacher has no more right to talk about his or her beliefs to my child any more than I have the right to start teaching your children what I think they should learn about gay marriage, equal rights, and religion. That's your choice, not mine. Teachers do NOT have the right to teach their opinions to other people's children. They have the duty to teach the curriculum approved by the local and state school boards. Essentially, they are actors, presenting a pre-written script, and they can only ad-lib so long as they stick to the general plot. This is the real reason that good public school teachers are dreadfully underpaid.
And as for removing it as a cause for dismissal, that won't protect them from charges of civil rights violation.
Frankly, if someone tried to teach my daughter that ID was "fact" and evolution was "theory", I'd have them hauled in front of a Congressional Hearing for violation of my and my family's civil rights as fast as I could push the system.
What am I teaching her? Well, ID is illogical religious fanaticism - the kind that ultimately got witches burned at the stake, and that Evolution is a theory that far surpasses any current alternative explanation in logical plausibility. Since she and my wife are Eclectic Pagans, I think this is an argument that will stick.
Does that mean she isn't allowed to learn about other religions? Of course not; that's stifling her education. She's already learned quite a lot about all the major Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judiasm, Islam,
http://xkcd.com/54/
http://www.mhall119.com
"Religion" has been regarded for centuries as unquestionable and authoritative. At what point did science merely replace that? When were we told that we cannot question assumptions made as part of scientific theory, and doesn't that reduce science to just another religion?
no comment
What a great idea. And those perfectly intelligent children who are born into poor or working class families that cannot afford to attend an "Ivy League" elementary school, or even any school at all in a world of only private K-12 education? Let them all flip burgers and wait on the rest of us simply because their parents had to spend money keeping them alive and had nothing left to pay for a proper education, right?
Class disparity is already a huge problem in the United States. What you are proposing would increase it even more so and result in millions of children being denied even an elementary education. You see no problem with that?
We already have private schools for children of parents who can afford them and want to segregate their children from the rest of the population for whatever reason. Proposing to abolish public education because of an issue like this is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Simply fix the issue. Proposing that we bulldoze the entire building because a few windows are broken is simply ignorant.
"We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."
So which "naturistic god" did the founding fathers believe to have lived 1786 years before the ratification of the Constitution?
Your conclusions from your cited passage do not make any sense. The simple occurrence of the word "Nature" is not a pass to read any naturalistic philosophy you deem fit into the statement.
The most obvious influence for the wording in the passage you quote is the philosophizing of John Locke, which is most profoundly depicted in the last sentence with a modification of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of property." The "Laws of Nature" would more frequently be referred to as "Natural Law"--the basic prohibitions against murder, theft, etc., which are believed to exist even when man is in the "state of nature" without any government to say what's okay and what isn't. "Nature's God" reinforcing the divine supremacy of such laws and fits in just as well with either the deistic or Christian beliefs. The deist argues against divine intervention after the instance of creation--but both deist and Christian equally agree on the primal nature of God's laws.
There is no coded espousal of deism. And, to be honest, there is no coded espousal of any other religious view either. The architects of the Declaration and the Constitution were either Christian or raised Christian, surrounded by Christians, in the one case writing a document seceding from a nigh-universally Christian nation, in the other writing a document to govern a nigh-universally Christian nation, and in both cases, considering a larger audience of Christian nations who would be reading the document and key in supporting the new government.
I certainly hope you don't honestly mean to suggest that the Declaration of Independence was written with a mind to capitalize on King George's/England's deist sensibilities, or to rally the American's behind their common deist theologies, because I cannot begin to imagine that in the midsts of fighting a war for their own survival that these men found subtle theological pedantry to be on the list of major priorities.
It should be bloody obvious that God is mentioned as a factor of commonality. In attempting to arbitrate with a country that shares such beliefs, and trying to unite a group of independent and frequently disjoint colonies, those kinds of commonalities are nothing to be balked at.
The language does not constitute an endorsement. It constitutes and assumption.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
See, you're confused. If science had replaced religion, we wouldn't have people arguing about intelligent design right now, because the reigning neo-Darwinist authorities would have burned them alive as heretics. Instead, IDers are free to conduct whatever research they want to try to support their claims--the fact that they've got no evidence whatsoever is not because some Darwinian Inquistion has suppressed it, but because their ideas are substantially without merit. NOTHING makes your name in science like overthrowing the prevailing wisdom (assuming you've got the data to back it up). Tell me, what part of the Bible, or Talmud, or Koran says, "all this is subject to revision on the basis of new findings." None, because they all purport to be the One Source of Universal Truth. This kind of arrogance is staggering--I don't think even the most unhinged scientist would claim a perfect understanding of anything in nature. Science may at times become dogmatic, but that's not a failure of the concept, it's a failure of the human beings employing it.
You seem to be very confused about the difference between secular and atheist. Secular mean, specifically, a concern with worldly things (as opposed to spiritual/supernatural/whatever). I think it's quite sound to claim that the founders of our country were EXTREMELY secular in their construction of our country. That is, they were very specific that their concern was with governance and not religion, and that never the twain should meet.
This is not to say they weren't religious people, or that religiously influenced morals didn't inform their decisions. Both may be true, but have nothing to do with the degree to which the specific system they set forth was secular. I would argue that it is was in fact highly and intentionally so, from the very beginning.
Creationists,
Why don't you just prove that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old, like the Bible says? That way, you can falsify "macro evolution" as an explanation for life without having to make an artificial distinction between different types of evolution.
Let us see the extraordinary evidence for the "young Earth" theory before we start arguing about "micro evolution". If you can prove that Earth isn't billions of years old using solid science, evidence and facts, no scientist will be able to argue with you. Science isn't a religion, it is a mechanism for learning things, and good scientists will not stick to their beliefs if those beliefs are proved wrong.
However, your evidence will have to be amazing, because it will have to override all of the other evidence that points to an old Earth. But since the Earth really is less than 10,000 years old, producing the evidence shouldn't present any difficulty, right? Ask your "creation scientists" why they can't prove even this one simple aspect of their "theory". No doubt a conspiracy of some kind is involved.
>north
You're an immobile computer, remember?
You refer to the church, and I assume you mean roman catholics.
Likewise, you say that there is not conflict between science and religion. That is positively false. It is the fact that so many idiots in evangelicals are trying to not just ignore science, but are trying to shut it down. They are CHOOSING to stop progress by preventing America from studying the basis of our world, and will just accept words from ppl like huckabee or W. That truly is scary, and bodes badly for us.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Well, I'm an atheist and I find some value in it. Fallible doesn't mean worthless or else nothing would be worth anything.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
It's interesting you say that since the exact same wording could be applied to the opposite side of the argument for people who don't believe in evolution and think that those who do aren't reviewing "all" the evidence correctly or at all. Something similar to this is already done, hopefully, in all schools, that being that text books can only be so up-to-date and for schools that have little to no funding the books could be very old and teachers have to supplement (or correct) what is stated in the books with their own knowledge as they keep up with their own research, etc. (e.g. Pluto is no longer a planet). The fact that in this case the teachers are allowed to supplement the information with *competing* information isn't any different and it's sad to see it takes a bill/law for this to even happen. If stating competing facts and theories is already happening in other subjects (and I don't know if it is but it should be if not) then I don't see why a bill is required to allow the same thing to be done for this specific topic of evolution other than for those who have an agenda and push evolution no matter what the competing facts and theories state.
If evolution is so 100% spot on then evolutionists shouldn't have anything to worry about as far as the potential loss of students who could help them fight for their cause because the students will be able to see for themselves that the competing facts/theories don't support observation and thus will go back to evolution on their own. Isn't that what teaching is supposed to be about? Teach kids the facts and let them come up with their own conclusions. If we purposely leave out facts because of our own agendas and biasses then we are doing a disservice to the students. This pertains to ANY subject not just evolution.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
first, we have to define terms. micro-evolution has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. macro-evolution has *not* been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
If only creationists *would* define terms. Most creationists use "Macroevolution" to mean any evolution for which we can't provide direct living or fossil evidence. In any case, Macro evolution is just accumulated micro-evolutionary steps.
*if* you had the irrefutable evidence, you'd present it. you don't, so you, well, don't. you just proclaim it truth and fact as though that makes it so... such arrogance.
I suggest reading this site. But you know you won't. Because your conclusion is already preordained. You have too much of your entire life invested in believing in supernaturalism.
there is some evidence for, there is some evidence against... we really don't know. that's the truth that should be taught in school.
Ah, the final weapon of the creationists. If they can find any question, now matter how small, that doesn't have a rock-solid answer, then they loudly proclaim that "HA! YOU SEE?? YOU SEE?? NO ONE KNOWS FOR SURE!!" Any open questions means that every theory is equally valid. It's akin to saying, "Since the Earth's horizon makes it look like a flat disk, therefore, the flat Earth theory is just as valid as the round Earth theory."
Well, every theory ISN'T equally valid. First of all, there is ZERO -- ZERO -- evidence against evolution. ZERO. There are certainly open questions about how certain things may have evolved, but that means there is a neutral question, not that it's "evidence against" evolution. So you have a Mount Everest of evidence for evolution, a large number of open questions (just the diversity of life and genetics means we're going to have a lot of open questions), zero evidence against evolution, and absolutely ZERO evidence that supports creationism. And, just to top it off, we have an entire planet-sized volume of evidence against the Earth being only 10,000 years old.
THAT is the carved-on-stone-tablet (if you'll pardon the expression) truth. If there really is a God (there isn't, but let's say), he must be constantly slapping his hand against his forehead screaming, "The bible is full of allegory, you idiots! What, do you think I could've explained physics to the damn barbarians?? Will you people use the brains I gave you, already?? It's a SOCIAL book, not a freaking science book!!"
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
It's an unwinnable proposition. Teaching and grading students on theories that contradict their (or their parents') religious believes is itself a form of religious education.
Bullshit. Accepting that requires teachers to pander to whatever religion the parents have, which is an establishment of religion. The best thing to do is have the parents teach the kids how to deal with the difference.
Abstinence is the only sure way to avoid pregnancy (shouldn't we be teaching kids oral sex and same-sex experimentation if that's the only goal of sex ad)?
That's a religious argument - it's only being pushed by religious lobbies, and is actually less effective than condoms and the pill.
Democracy is the best form of government for every society
Then why don't we have one? Someone needs to go back to civics class.
All races and both genders are EXACTLY the same in all aspects and will be equally good at EVERY job in EXACTLY equal percentage of the corresponding population.
They are the same before the law, and you'd have trouble finding legitimate racial diffs in jobs, although some physical work is done better by men. Doesn't mean you get to tell a woman no for that construction job - you have to have a reason other than her breasts.
We don't need all our children brainwashed by the government into one single way of thinking, be it religious, political or scientific.
Says the person apparently defending the challenge to evolution going on in our schools. You preach about not indoctrinating the young while pushing an agenda of indoctrination. Nice.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"